The present invention relates to imaging systems and methods, and more particularly to a method and system of automatically filling required information onto an original form.
There are in business and in the transactions of individual customers, situations in which it is required, or it is necessary, to use only the original preprinted form supplied to the business or customer, for providing machine printed required information. This typically means that handwritten entries of the required information are not acceptable, and that no copies or reproductions of the forms are acceptable, even when they include the required information in printed form. Such situations are common in for example hospitals involving medical records, in law firms involving court documents, and in numerous government operations involving licenses and certificates for example.
Conventionally, the typical solution for this situations has been to use a typewriter system as disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,620,808 issued Nov. 4, 1986, to Kurtin et al. for print-filling in the original form as required. However, such a typical solution is apparently not very satisfactory, because it is tedious and time-consuming, as well as requiring careful and constant in-process positioning, viewing and manual realignment of the original form on the typewriter platen, as well as manually correcting any errors after typing. Additionally, most businesses and now home computer owners, already have invested significant capital in automatic, computer and word-processing systems, and understandably have a need, and would like such a system to be enabled to automatically print with acceptable quality and reliability on an original form as required in any of the above situations.
Some previously disclosed examples of approaches for using such a computer imaging system towards automation of some aspects of form filling are set forth below. One such approach is disclosed in an article by R. G. Casey and D. R. Ferguson in the IBM Systems Journal Vol. 29, No. 3, 1990 Pages 435-450 titled "Intelligent Forms Processing." Disclosed is a forms recognition process whereby the forms are scanned creating an electronic bitmap representation of the image. Using various image processing techniques, the bitmap form is analyzed and compared with other bitmap forms, stored in a database as templates, until a match is found. If no match is found, the user must enter the new type of form by interacting with the computer and specifying a new addition to the template database. The template creation process includes displaying the bitmap on a graphical display and using a pointing device to designate the outlines of fields.
Similar to the article by Casey and Ferguson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,979 to Suzuki et al. discloses a form sheet reading apparatus. In this system, a form is scanned resulting in an electronic bitmap which is displayed for a user on a graphic display terminal. The user, using a graphical input interface, then selects on the displayed bitmap the items which make up the template. For instance, the user may outline a box which has information answering a question posed on the form. The designations of the user are stored into a first file and is later used as a template. However, the process of template creation disclosed in Suzuki et al. is very manual intensive and prone to error. Also, Suzuki et al. requires that there be at least one line on the form in order to detect a field.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,254,984 issued Oct. 19,1993, to Wakeland discloses a VGA (video graphics array) controller for displaying images having selective components from multiple image planes. A first image and a second image overlaying the first image are interleaved into three of four bit planes of a dynamic random access memory. When displaying the image, the controller will simultaneously read from the first and second images. If the value of the second image is non-zero, then the second image is displayed. Otherwise the first image is displayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,542,378 issued Sep. 17, 1985, to Suganuma et al. discloses a document processing method wherein blank forms are read by an image input device, and the format thereof is stored in a memory. Additional information for filling in the form is input in the same manner, and the information is electronically overlaid using a control device for the memory, so that a completed form is stored in the memory for output by a printing device. With the invention, once the blank form is input to the device, further blank forms are unnecessary.